WASHINGTON – Federal regulators on Wednesday took measures aimed at reining in aggressive forms of short-selling that were blamed in part for the demise of Lehman Brothers and which some feared could be used against other vulnerable companies in a turbulent market. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080918/ap_on_bi_ge/sec_short_selling

Short selling is a form of speculation that allows a trader to sell securities that he does not own, effectively taking a “negative position“. They do this when they expect the value of the securities to decrease in the market, allowing them to sell securities at today’s price and then buy the securities back when they decrease in value. With a large enough move in the price, the trader can purchase the securities, “covering” their position, for less money than they received for selling them earlier. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_short_selling

The Securities and Exchange Commission adopted rules it said would provide permanent protections against abusive “naked” short-selling. Unlike the SEC’s temporary emergency ban this summer covering naked short-selling in the stocks of mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and 17 large investment banks, the new rules apply to trading in the broader market. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080918/ap_on_bi_ge/sec_short_selling

In a further move, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said he planned to ask his four fellow commissioners to consider on an emergency basis a new rule that would require hedge funds and other large-scale investors to disclose their short positions — the stocks they have borrowed and sold but not yet replaced. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080918/ap_on_bi_ge/sec_short_selling

The rule would be designed to ensure transparency in short-selling in general, beyond the practice of naked short-selling, Cox said in a statement issued Wednesday night. Investment managers with more than $100 million holdings in securities would be required to promptly begin public reporting of their daily short positions. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080918/ap_on_bi_ge/sec_short_selling

Certain Commenators believe that “short-selling” accelerated the demise of Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers and that it was also involved with the sudden drop in AIG stock values that led to the Government takeover. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_short_selling. The Primary reason for these Companies economic troubles was their ill-advised real-estate investments, however, “naked short sales” may have killed the already ailing Companies.